QU’s Boyd earns GLVC Coach of the Year, while three Hawks garner all-conference honors

QUINCY — Courtney Boyd believes the phrase “Coach of the Year” is a misnomer.

“To be honest with you, I wish it wasn’t a singular award,” she said.

The second-year Quincy University women’s basketball coach knows she can’t do everything alone, including engineering one of the best turnaround stories in the Great Lakes Valley Conference.

The Hawks fashioned a 15-game win streak, finished the regular season with a 22-7 overall record and a 16-4 mark in the GLVC, and earned the third seed in this week’s GLVC Tournament, leading to Boyd being named the GLVC Coach of the Year.

“It means a lot because I know the amount of work the staff puts in,” said Boyd, whose team was picked tied for seventh in the preseason poll of GLVC coaches. “If anybody could see inside my brain, they would understand it is not just me. My staff keeps me in line on a day-to-day basis. 

“The things that go on behind the scenes are really what matters. I can’t do that by myself. No one can be a successful coach by themself. It’s a Coach of the Year award because I have the title, but it’s a staff of the year award because what those three bring is huge for us.”

Those three — Brooke Bailey, Dale Linderwell and Skylar Culbertson — have been a part of the Hawks’ turnaround since Boyd took the job in the spring of 2023. Quincy went 10-18 in their first season as a staff, then followed it up with the first 20-win season since the 2015-16 team went 25-6.

It helped to have three all-conference players leading the charge.

Nicole McDermott, a fifth-year guard who transferred from Clarke University, earned first-team All-GLVC honors, while senior forward Cymirah Williams was a second-team selection and sophomore guard Mariann Blass was a third-team pick.

The 5-foot-7 McDermott, who played for Boyd at Clarke when they won an NAIA national championship in 2023, led the Hawks in scoring at 15.7 points per game, while shooting 45.9 percent from the field and 84.1 percent from the free-throw line. She led the GLVC in free throws made with 134, averaged 6.6 rebounds and tied for the team lead in steals with 41.

The 5-foot-11 Williams averaged 10.4 points and 9.1 rebounds, while recording 11 double-doubles. She blocked a team-high 28 shots, tied for the team lead with 41 steals and shot 45.2 percent from the field.

The 5-foot-9 Blass averaged 11.3 points and led the Hawks with 47 made free throws. She also shot a team-leading 87.5 percent from the free-throw line.

“They each brought something a little bit different on any given night,” Boyd said. “It makes us a little bit harder to scout. That’s kudos to them. That’s a compliment to what they’ve done, what they’ve been able to add to their game, what they’ve been able to add to the team.”

Third-seeded Quincy is scheduled to face sixth-seeded Missouri S&T at 8:15 p.m. Friday in the quarterfinals of the GLVC Tournament at Hyland Arena on the Lindenwood campus in St. Charles, Mo.